Holleman, Zais clash on early education

COLUMBIA -- The candidates for state superintendent disagreed repeatedly on how to run public education, including whether to expand kindergarten for 4 year olds. Democrat Frank Holleman and Republican Mick Zais addressed far-ranging questions from funding measures to the relevance of federal No Child Left Behind law to how much emphasis to place on testing during an SCETV Radio debate Monday evening. Zais, a retired brigadier general in the Army, stepped down as president of Newberry College in July after 10 years at the helm. Holleman, a Greenville attorney, worked for former S.C. Gov. Dick Riley when he was secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. During the dialogue with moderator Mark Quinn, Zais linked himself to Republican gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley, referred to a proposal by U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, and cast Holleman as a federal bureaucrat. Holleman stressed his relationships with PTA's, principals and teachers and held Zais to be unfamiliar with the practical and policy-oriented sides of public education. Both candidates said early education for at-risk 4-year-olds helped lay the foundation for success later in life. "Voluntary, high-quality 4-year-old kindergarten is perhaps the best single investment we can make in education," said Holleman. "We shouldn't be paying for that for everybody from the state, but we should work to see that every child that has a need has access ... ." Zais said he supports 4-K for low-income children but that expanding it would strain financial, staffing and facilities resources. "I don't think we should drive our church-supported early childhood programs or our nonprofit early childhood programs out of business," he said. "What we have now voluntary, targeted to low income high risk, public private partnership is the way to go." But Holleman said that's not enough. "We cannot rest on our laurels where we sit today," he said. "There are hundreds and thousands of young children in our state who come to school not ready to succeed. We cannot turn our backs on them." S.C. First Steps 4-year-old Kindergarten teaches a research-based curricula in private, for-profit, non-profit, faith-based and Head Start programs. Children must qualify for free or reduced-price lunch program or Medicaid in order to enroll and live in one of 37 targeted school districts. On Nov. 2, voters will elect a successor for S.C. Superintendent Jim Rex, a Democrat, who makes $92,000.

Rex told state senators Tuesday that South Carolina can't afford to continue delaying reforms to the ways it gathers state revenues and funds its public schools. Testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Funding Reform, Rex said that the time has come to start changing "a system that everyone agrees is broken."